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AbstractPrincipal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to evaluate groundwater quality data acquired in the pre-injection and injection periods for the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project (IBDP), a large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project located in Decatur, Illinois, USA. For the pre-injection and injection periods three principal components explained 76.6% and 80.0% of the total data variance, respectively. Analysis of the pre-injection data set determined that highly positive loadings for total dissolved solids, chloride, bromide, sodium, magnesium, potassium, and electrical conductance designated the first component (PC1) as the salinity factor. High loadings for calcium, iron, and sulfate in component two (PC2) represents an oxidation-reduction component. The third component (PC3) represents groundwater acidity because of highly positive loading of pH. For the injection data set the variables contributed to the first component are bromide, sodium, total dissolved solids, chloride, electrical conductance, potassium, sulfate, iron, and calcium. Sulfate, magnesium, and calcium contribute to the second component and pH to the third component and represent salinity, dissolution, and acidity of groundwater. The results of the PC analysis indicate that water-rock interactions are the primary mechanism governing groundwater quality during both periods. The results of this analysis indicate that CO2 injection activities have not impacted the quality of the shallow groundwater in the project area.

AbstractA simple experiment for capillary sealed trap shows that leakage would occur only from the weakest point in the trap. As an extens ion of this concept, the sequestrated and accumulated CO2 in the structural high may happen to leak from the unexpected weak point near the top of sealing layer. On the other hand, if CO2 were sequestrated into the flank of tilted aquifer, CO2 in separate phas e would migrate upward within aquifer with no CO2 leakage into the sealing layer above and leaving some residual amount behind. According to this concept, the best location for sequestration of CO2 could be the flank of the structure rather than the top.

Abstract This paper characterized the wood pellet and torrefied wood pellet fuel as compared to coal for 100 MW co-firing power generation plant. There were five experiments to characterise the chemical and physical properties of coal, wood pellet and torrefied wood pellet namely moisture analysis, Thermo gravimetric Analyser (TGA), Bomb Calorimeter, Organic Elemental Analyser and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The moisture analysis result from moisture analyser and TGA shows that the moisture content of torrefied wood pellet is lower than wood pellet at 6.760% and 3.629%. Moreover, the volatile matter, hydrogen and nitrogen content of torrefied wood pellet is lower than wood pellet at 65.20%, 5.993% and 0.4078% correspondingly. The calorific value, fixed carbon content, ash and sulphur also increase in torrefied wood pellet at 20.68 MJ/kg, 28.85%, 2.321% and 0.1656% respectively. In general, torrefaction improve the fuel properties of wood pellet similar to coal. The 100 MW direct co-firing power plant provides less capital investment, operation and maintenance cost for low rate co-firing ratio. However, there is economic challenges for high rate co-firing substation of torrefied wood pellets.

AbstractThe future European energy supply system will have a high share of renewable energy sources (RES) to meet the greenhouse gas emission policy of the European Commission. Such a system is characterized by the need for a strongly interconnected energy transport grid as well as a high demand of energy storage capacities to compensate the time fluctuating characteristic of most RE generation technologies. With the RE generators at the location of high harvest potential, the appropriate dimension of storage and transmission system between different regions, a cost efficient system can be achieved. To find the preferred target system, the optimization tool GENESYS (Genetic Optimization of a European Energy System) was developed. The example calculations under the assumption of 100% self-supply, show a need of about 2,500 GW RES in total, a storage capacity of about 240,000 GWh, corresponding to 6% of the annual energy demand, and a HVDC transmission grid of 375,000 GWkm. The combined cost for generation, storage and transmission excluding distribution, was estimated to be 6.87 ct/kWh.

Abstract Uncertainties of cooling load may make cooling system oversized. Most of previous studies implement probabilistic-based uncertainty analysis, intending to achieve optimization and reliability simultaneously. However, how to reduce the load uncertainty has received little attention. This paper investigates the impact of water storage on the design of cooling system considering load uncertainty. Information entropy is used as a convergence index of load uncertainty and used to determine how many random simulations should to be performed. A cooling system configured with water storage (system B) and another system without water storage (system A as a comparation system) are investigated in this paper. In this paper, the configure of system A and system B are optimized respectively. The result shows that the capacity distribution of system A is consistent with the distribution of extreme loads. But, the capacity distribution of system B is more concentrated as the water storage can reshape the load curve. Water storage improves the flexibility of system B. Therefore, system B is more reliable and economical than system A.

AbstractA two-stage thermophilic fermentation for hydrogen and methane production from wastewater of cassava rice and corn starch at different concentration (5,10 and 15g/L) was studied. The hydrogen production from cassava starch at concentrations of 5g/L gave the highest hydrogen yield and followed by cassava starch at a concentration 10g/L, rice starch at concentrations of 15g/L. The hydrogen and methane yields from cassava starch processing wastewater by two-stage was 81.5 L H2 kgCOD-1 and 310.5 L CH4 kgCOD-1, respectively with total energy yield of 13363kJ kgCOD-1. Mixed hydrogen and methane (biohythane) production was 9.51 L biogas l-1 with containing of 55% CH4, 11% H2 and 34% CO2.

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) brings together geoscientists from all over the world covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. This geoscientific interdisciplinarity is needed to tackle the challenges of the future. One major challenge for humankind is to provide adequate and reliable supplies of affordable energy and other resources in efficient and environmentally sustainable ways. This Energy Procedia issue provides an overview of the contributions of the Division on Energy, Resources & the Environment (ERE) at the EGU General Assembly 2017.

Abstract The main purpose of salinity gradient solar ponds (SGSPs) is to store the maximum possible solar thermal energy. A well-established salinity and temperature gradients are the main points to achieved optimum storage efficiency. In this work, a high-fidelity model is developed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the SGSP behavior under hot climate regions. The model is able to simulate the double convective effect by solving Navier-Stokes and energy equations, simultaneously. Brines with different salinities (i.e. 10%,15, and 25%) are used to investigate their role on the developed salinity/temperature gradients. Simulation results show the successful establishment of the three zones (i.e. upper convective, non-convective, and lower convective) with relatively stable salinity and temperature gradients. However, injecting the lower convective zone (or storage zone) with 10% saline brine results in preserving the highest storage temperature of around 79.2°C after flow time of six hours.